AUSTRALIANS AT WAR

THE NEW AMERICAN CENTURY is a compelling factual history of neoconservatism and its influence on US Foreign Policy in the Middle East during the first decade of the twenty-first century. Click on image above for details.

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Australian Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop, on a recent visit to Israel to attend the funeral of Israeli war criminal Ariel Sharon told the Israeli people that the international community should stop saying that Israeli settlements scattered throughout the West Bank are illegal. She said: “I would like to see which international law has declared them illegal”.

The international law that says that the Israeli settlements are illegal is the Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 49, paragraph 6, which says that an occupying power “shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies”. Israel as a signatory to the convention is bound to it. Under international law, such violations are considered war crimes.

As a trained lawyer (Bishop has a degree in Law from Adelaide University) she should have known exactly which international law declares the Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal.

Monday, January 20, 2014

Further to my post earlier today regarding the possibility of Netanyahu taking matters into his own hands and launching an attack on Iran on the off-chance that the US Congress will comes to Israel’s aid, it seems that such a possibility is very likely.

Israel’s Deputy Defence Minister, Danny Danon, has written a piece published in Politico hinting that Israel might indeed launch a pre-emptive unilateral attack against Iran. While Danon doesn’t state specifically that Israel will attack Iran, he does cite Israel’s previous attacks against nuclear facilities in Iraq in 1981 and Syria in 2007, both of which were launched unilaterally and supposedly without US support.

As I noted back in August 2010, Israel has extensive fuel stocks, which would have been rotated in use, to mount an attack against Iran and, at the same time, launch a full-on war against Hamas and Hezbollah. Undoubtedly, Israel would also have been busy upgrading and stockpiling munitions and ordnance for just such a war.

And, despite Obama’s reluctance to go to war against Iran knowing the American people simply aren’t ready for yet another war, everything is in place militarily in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf for the US to launch a devastating attack against Iran at a moments notice.

And with Congress itching to attack Iran despite the peoples reluctance for war, the moment Israel decides to go, the US will be right behind them.

On Monday, 20 January 2014, the agreements entered into between Iran and the so-called P5+1 will come into effect that will relieve Iran of some of the sanctions against it and release billions of much needed dollars into the Iranian economy.

On top of that, President Obama seems to have prevailed in his stoush with a large bipartisan group of Senators wanting to push a bill in the Senate that was pushing for increased sanctions against Iran that would be triggered at the slightest sign of faltering on the agreement by Iran. Also imbedded in that bill is a clause that gave Israel the trigger to start a war with Iran that would oblige the US to automatically enjoin Israel in such a war. While that stoush isn’t quite over yet – it hasn’t yet been withdrawn – it does seem to leave Netanyahu in the cold as far unilaterally attacking Iran is concerned and not knowing that he can rely on the US for support.

But it’s not quite as cold as may first appear for Netanyahu.

What the bipartisan bill has demonstrated is that there is considerable support among Congress on both sides for Netanyahu and his push for war. While the majority of ordinary American people are dead set against the US heading off to another war, clearly the majority of Congress don’t hold the same view as most ordinary Americans.

Netanyahu knows this and, since whether or not America goes to war is a decision made by Congress and not the American people, one has to wonder if Netanyahu is willing to take a punt in light of the new paradigm.

If Netanyahu made the decision to unilaterally attack Iran it would seem likely that Congress would consider their position as fait accompli and more than likely immediately declare their support for Israel and enjoin them in a confrontation that would likely be aimed not just at destroying Iran’s nuclear facilities, but at actual regime change.

All Netanyahu has to do is find an excuse. Everything else is in place. To launch an attack against Iran will almost certainly tip the balance in Congress in Netanyahu’s favour. The only reason Obama isn’t on side at the moment is because he knows the American people aren’t interested in more war. But once his hand is forced by both Netanyahu and Congress, Obama and even the American people once they see it as inevitable, will soon be on side.

Thursday, January 16, 2014

This is a re-posting of a piece written in 2010. In light of the current ‘peace talks’ between Israel and the Palestinians, the negotiations going on between the P5+1 and Iran over Iran’s nuclear program, and the push for a bill in the US Senate that allows for Israel to trigger war against Iran that automatically pulls in the US, the article is as appropriate today as it was when first written in 2010 – if not more so.

14 April 2010

There are two things about the Middle East that the world should be absolutely clear about. First, Israel has no intention of ever allowing any kind of Palestinian state to exist in any shape or form in any part of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Second, there is absolutely no way that Israel can ever launch an attack against Iran without US knowledge and US connivance. Any claim that an Israeli strike against Iran was completely ‘unilateral’ would be a lie.

The talk of ‘peace’ between Israel and the Palestinian people is nothing but a ruse to play for time while the Zionist Israelis await for an opportunity to arise that will provide them with the excuse they need to massively invade and completely occupy the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and south Lebanon up to the Litani River. These are the ultimate aims of the Zionists of Israel and their neoconservative supporters in the US and elsewhere around the Western world. And it is the hope of the Zionists of Israel that Iran somehow will provide the casus belli to initiate such a chain reaction of events that will allow Israel to fulfil its dream of creating a Greater Israel.

A quick review of the list of so-called peace initiatives that have been attempted shows just how insincere and hypocritical the Israelis have been about Palestinian independence. Ever since Israel came into existence there have been no end of so-called 'peace talks' including the Jarring Mission, the Rogers Plan, the Reagan Plan, the Oslo Accords, the Wye River Memorandum, the Camp David Summit, the Taba Summit, the Elon Peace Plan, the Nusseibeh-Ayalon Agreement, the Arab Peace Initiative, the Road Map to Peace, the Madrid Conference, the Hebron Protocol, the Annapolis Conference, the Beirut Summit, the Peace Valley Plan, etc., all of which have been going on for years and none of which – not one – have amounted to anything, and all the time while these talks and negotiations have been going on, Israel has slowly and insidiously permeated its way onto lands that do not belong to them.

Today, Israel’s modus operandi has become blatantly transparent. They have demonstrated that there will be no let up in the building of settlements in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem despite the rhetoric about wanting ‘peace’ – knowing full well that peace on Israel’s terms will not ever be acceptable to the Palestinian people and nothing that the Palestinians will concede to will ever be enough for the Zionists.

The neoconservatives and the Israel lobby in America have ensured that the US will never get serious about there ever being a Palestinian state. The Israel lobby have succeeded in ensuring that virtually all the members of Congress on both sides will unflinchingly support Israeli Zionism.

If Israel did attack Iran in what they would tell the world was a ‘unilateral pre-emptive first strike’, the world can rest assured that the US will respond by siding with Israel with immediate and massive follow-up strikes against Iran in order to deter Iran from retaliatory action against Israel and to compel Iran to capitulate or face further massive destruction upon their nation. Meanwhile, Israel will simultaneously attack both Hamas in the Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon and follow this up with full-on invasions of the Gaza Strip, south Lebanon and the West Bank on the pretext that these actions too are to pre-empt Hamas and Hezbollah retaliation after striking Iran. In the face of such a massive onslaught by the US and the Israelis, the Syrians are unlikely to respond with any great enthusiasm.

The West’s delusions about ‘peace’, a ‘Palestinian state’, and Irans suicidal bid to destroy Israel with a nuclear weapon will end in disaster for the people of the Middle East – and perhaps even the world.

There is now only one solution and that is the One State bi-national solution where the Jews of Israel live in equality with the Palestinian people, where the Golan Heights are returned to the Syrians, where both all of the Gaza strip and the West Bank becomes part of the new state and the Palestinians have full right of return with full compensation for their land losses paid for by the world community.

The alternative will be disaster for both the Arabs, the Israelis and the possibly the world.

UPDATEMichael J. Totten, writing in the Zionist Neocon journal Commentary, has confirmed my assertion that attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities in order to destroy its weapons making ability is not what the Israelis really want. He writes:

"If the Israelis decide to use force, the nuclear facilities should not be the target. The government should be the target. And the U.S. should back Israel's play and even assist it, no matter how enraged American officials might be."This is exactly the scenario I suggested years ago at this blog. He also foresees the same scenario I suggested with regard to Hamas in the Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon:

"Striking Iran would, in all likelihood, ignite several Middle Eastern wars all at once. Hamas and Hezbollah would bombard Israel with missile attacks. Lebanon and Gaza would both come under massive counterbattery fire."

I have suggested this, but the ‘counterbattery fire’ would be followed up by invasion and permanent occupation.

Totten also suggests that:

“A military attack against Iran should be rolled out only if every conceivable peaceful solution fails first.”

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Zionists and their neoconservative supporters have always framed Ariel Sharon’s pull-out of the Gaza Strip as some kind of concession to Palestinians that might result in peace for those Israelis who lived under the threat of attack from Palestinians who had been ghettoised within the Strip and were resisting occupation. The pull-out was seen as a precursor to the ‘land for peace’ deals that Israel was pushing as part of the ‘Israeli-Palestinian Peace Plan’.

The Zionists figured that, if they pulled out of the Gaza Strip, the Palestinians inside would give up attacking Israel on account of having gained a victory. However, what the Zionists hadn’t bargained for was that the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip consider the Gaza as only a part of Palestine which also includes all of the West Bank and which remains occupied.

The Zionist cry was; ‘We gave them land in the Gaza Strip, yet still they attack us’. First off and most obvious was the fact that the Gaza Strip land was never Israel’s to give to the Palestinians.

But moving away from the ins and outs of what happened, the question that has never really been asked is: Was the pull-out really that big a deal in the first place and what was the real reason for it?

There were only around 9,000 Israeli settlers in the Gaza Strip and one of the real reasons Sharon pulled them out as part of his so-called ‘disengagement plan’ was because they were simply absorbing too much of Israel’s military resources to keep them there. The hope that the pull-out might mean peace on Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip also had tremendous propaganda appeal – albeit rather misguided as it turned out.

Ariel Sharon wasn’t called ‘Bulldozer’ for nothing; once he had got an idea set in his mind, he was both relentless and ruthless in seeing it through. In pushing for the ‘disengagement plan’, Sharon even sacked two of his cabinet members just to ensure he had the numbers in cabinet when it came to voting on the plan – a plan that had met with strong opposition from Zionists and the settler movement.

Of course, now that Sharon is no more, we shall never really know what he ultimately had in mind for the Gaza Strip.

Like Netanyahu today, Sharon never really envisaged a Palestinian state. To maintain US support, both leaders have always said that they want to see a independent Palestinian state, but both have always set the conditions so high that they know the Palestinians will never accept them and that therefore, there will never be a Palestinian state.

Netanyahu is now simply waiting for an excuse to march in and fully occupy both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. He will use an attack against Iran as an opportunity to do that. Re-taking the Gaza Strip would be a comparatively easy task but it would need the cover of a much bigger crisis in order to do that. War against Iran would provide that cover.

From a tactical point of view, the unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip was never really that big a deal. Its real value was in the propaganda potential the withdrawal had. The Zionists can now always say that the ‘land for peace’ arrangements didn’t work so why give up the settlements in the West Bank? Netanyahu knows that, given the right conditions, he can walk into and completely re-occupy the Gaza Strip at anytime when those conditions are right – just as Ariel Sharon knew that when he pulled out in the first place.

Sharon’s pig-headedness meant that he had to continue the charade of the man seeking peace. He did this by setting up the Kadima Party after being pushed out of the Likud. He couldn’t let on to the Zionists and settlers that it was always his intention to ultimately make the Gaza Strip a part of Israel. What he needed was time to find a way to get it back – time he never got to have.

Netanyahu, however, is now fighting hard to finish the business that Sharon had spent all of his life fighting for; to build a Greater Israel. A final confrontation with Iran may just provide the means by which he thinks he can do it.

Pulling out of the Gaza wasn’t a big deal for peace; it was just a small sacrifice to be made for the bigger prize to come when the opportunity arose.

Neocon warmonger Max Boot writing in Commentary today seems to think that the latest negotiations with Iran will “implicitly recognize Iran’s ‘right’ to enrich uranium”, adding “i.e., its ‘right’ to maintain breakout capacity to build a bomb within a few weeks or months”.

First off, Iran, as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, has always had the right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes and, while Iran’s enemies have tried desperately to accuse Iran of having a nuclear weapons program, there has never been any hard evidence produced to support the claim. All there has ever been is wild accusations, unreliable statements from defectors who would say anything the West wants to hear if the price is right, and just plain downright lies from people like Max Boot.

Secondly, there is no more evidence to support the claim that Iran has ‘breakout capacity to build a bomb’ then there is saying that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. As for the claim that the Iranians can reach ‘breakout capacity within a few weeks or months’… well, we’ve heard all this nonsense before as I wrote three years ago. And Iran still doesn’t have a bomb.

Monday, January 13, 2014

The war criminal Tony Blair will be present for Ariel Sharon’s funeral as will be Australia’s Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop. Bishop was a member of the Australian war criminal John Howard’s government that was part of the group of nations that waged unprovoked war against Iraq knowing that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and knowing that Iraq was not a threat to Australia.

Australia’s Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s decision to send Bishop to Sharon’s funeral exposes the Australian government’s support of ruthless Israeli Zionist policies against the Palestinian people and a strong indicator of where Australia will stand in any future confrontation with Iran.

Just as Howard committed Australia to war against Iraq, so Abbott is just as likely to commit Australia to war against Iran if Israel and the US launch yet another unprovoked attack.

Friday, January 10, 2014

Seventy senior Israeli-centric neoconservatives have written an open letter to Congress imploring them to do more to ensure Iran complies with the conditions of any agreement finally reached with the P5+1 over Iran’s nuclear program.

While the neocons are ostensibly asking Congress to ensure compliance, it is clear that their real aim is to convince members of Congress to support the bill currently passing through the Senate which calls for tighter sanctions against Iran in the event of any waywardness on Iran’s part.

The neocons are eager to see the bill get through Congress with enough support to make it veto-proof, not so much because they are concerned about Iran’s so-called nuclear weapons program – there’s still not a skerrick of hard evidence that Iran has a nuclear weapons program – but, rather, because embedded within the bill is this clause:

…if the Government of Israel is compelled to take military action in legitimate self-defense against Iran’s nuclear weapon program, the United States Government should stand with Israel and provide, in accordance with the law of the United States and the constitutional responsibility of Congress to authorize the use of military force, diplomatic, military, and economic support to the Government of Israel in its defense of its territory, people, and existence…

Essentially, the clause is an automatic trigger for the US to attack Iran at any time the Israelis choose to launch a first strike – regardless of whether President Obama is in favour or not.

Friday, January 03, 2014

The UK Daily Telegraph reports that Israel is preparing to give the war criminal Ariel Sharon a state funeral. The report was prompted by Sharon’s rapidly deteriorating health as he approaches his ninth year of being in a coma after having a debilitating stroke on 4 January 2006.

In 1982 Ariel Sharon commanded Israeli Defence Forces in Lebanon and directly facilitated the massacres of Palestinian refugees by Lebanese Phalangist and other right-wing irregular forces. Israeli forces had surrounded the camps preventing anyone from leaving and provided flares to light up the camps to allow the murderers easy movement through the areas. The Israelis also facilitated the removal of the dead thus preventing any accurate figures being available to assess how many had been killed though it is estimated that as many as 3500 people may have been slaughtered. The Kahan Report investigating the killings later found Sharon bore responsibility for the massacres.

It is inconceivable that the Butcher of Sabra and Shatila should be given a state funeral and it is even more unimaginable that world leaders would actually attend this farce.

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About Me

is an Aeronautical Engineer, Historian and general carer of what goes on in the world.
Apart from an earlier career in engineering, Lataan also has a First Class Honours BA degree in History and a PhD in International Politics.
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